


Hollow Death

by ThatSoChangeableChick



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Graphic Description, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Murder Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-10-31 18:32:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10905027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatSoChangeableChick/pseuds/ThatSoChangeableChick
Summary: I've been going through a bad patch. This is my attempt to clear it out.In foresight, my apologies.But there will be more chapters, so...*thumbs up*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been going through a bad patch. This is my attempt to clear it out.  
> In foresight, my apologies.  
> But there will be more chapters, so...  
> *thumbs up*

He wouldn’t've found out if it wasn't for Valentino Moretti. Sooner or later, obviously, he'd have noticed but it could've been years, decades – hell, perhaps even centuries before he really understood. Just taking his fickle mental health into account here.

To understand the full depth of what he'd finally understood, to begin one would need the background. This being that a few weeks before his sweet sixteen, he'd imploded and life abruptly ended. This, also being, that about seven months after, he'd resurrected from the dead. The cause of his fickle mental health is, suddenly, more transparent.

But that, as noted, is background.

Like him, background didn't stay dead. It scavenged and looped into the present. Basically, starved hellhounds with promise of a warm meal. It ripped Jason apart then, the knowledge that hellhounds never satisfied at his death. The knowledge that the hellhounds would always be back. Whether, he really asked for it or not.

Is this what the hellhounds wanted? For Jason to ask for death?

In his eyes the shadows blur, warped by neon red flashes bowed through his spider-webbed window. It wouldn't hurt. Not more than it already did. "…back off –" he rasped and flinched at lurching bodies. Human and otherwise. It felt like the stubborn dead, aggrieved how he lived when they didn't. It felt like a faint hiss and a low whimper, constantly smothering his head.

In reality, perhaps, shadows twisted different. But, that didn't matter. Not with the truth, acknowledged and embellished in the centerfold. That life before the truth, had become a lie. Far and distant. Any attempt to perceive that lie was incomprehensible and foreign. His mind had become a stranger, because now…

His world revolved on a single fact:

He was dead.

His fingers creaked and the handgun clicked. He had to fix this.

It would work, wouldn't it? It had to – this was different than before – than earlier. It had to work. If it didn't – no, fuck, no. It had to work. His heart thundered, flesh heated by liquid flush and sweat twisted on the harsh steel. Life held by a chokehold like this; he felt alive. Either, a skewed survival effort or, evidence that Jason finally did good.  

In the flesh of his hand the gun solidified – from here, barrel a black hole – and without a notice, he fired. In that moment, Jason Todd died.

But that, is noted, as background.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a massacre. For a long while, the Batman surveyed gruesome blood splatters and disfigured, agonized forms of no-longer humans. It had been a long, long time since death had prevailed in such a manner. The tale of what occurred was in the blood, crimson and soaking into the worn leather of the pub.

Commissioner Jim Gordon exhaled, hand twitched for the cigarette he wouldn't reach for yet. Batman imperceptibly nodded, "…what do you know?" he growled. The question a low bass. His lack of formalities barely perceived as steam blew from beneath the pepper-dashed moustache.

"Not enough," Gordon admitted. He jabbed at the overhead cameras, "Most of the surveillance was out of commission. Except the external camera, which sustained damage, my I-T guys are salvaging what's possible but I'm not optimistic." He scratched his moustache, ability to walk the crime scene compromised by smears of red.

For the few souls who knew, Batman's mouth flexed: "How many?" He rasped, sounded like it hurt. Gordon shook his head, side-stepped a blood pool and beneath the pitch-black stars. He removed a cigarette in practiced ease and breathed smoke. Better than the decaying flesh inside.

"From what we've counted –" he shook his head, pained at the number, " – thirty-two. Dead upon arrival. We found a survivor –" he pointed at the hovering ambulance, body black-bagged, " – but, before he succumbed to his wounds, he couldn't tell us what actually happened here."

He sucked in a large drag and huffed smoke: "You and I. It's been decades; decades, Batman. I think a part of me actually believed we'd seen all the demented and gruesome possible, " Gordon grimly huffed. "I actually believed we'd found the limit, but that, in there –" he shook his head, " – that wasn't human." He despondently grumbled, "Not as you and I know them."

Batman said: "We'll find them, Jim."

"Yes, we will," Gordon nodded. He sucked a long, final puff before he blunted the cigarette and tucked it in his pocket. "Come on. There's something I need to show you." The scene of the crime, centered at _Tonno Rosso_ , had spilled into the back alley where two CSI officials documented the found.

Batman imperceptibly flinched and concluded: "There's a survivor."

"Or, more likely considering the others," Gordon nodded and patted a CSI on the back, "This is the culprit's exit route." He grimaced at trampled intestines and focused on the frame. "There's a partial print. I doubt we'll find a match but it'll narrow down our suspect pool," Gordon indicated.

Batman declared: "You have someone in mind."

Gordon retreated into the lamplight. "I have a few suspects," he shrugged and lit another cigarette, "It takes a certain predator to walk away from what happened in there. But –" he exhaled and watched smoke curdle to the darkness above, " – I have a feeling we're looking for something entirely new."

"I keep that in mind, Jim," Batman said.

Unlike usual, Batman remained. He bypassed morbid still-humid blood and bluish bodies, and crouched beside a dipped tile behind an occupied booth. The occupants wide-eyed fear deadened to the world and throat sliced. On the walls blood and plasma coated, a vague silhouette rubbed in by clothes.

There was approximately four liters of blood pooled. From several simultaneous fatal wounds. A CSI tech helpfully divulged: "I'll take samples to find out who's that is. My buck is on Glass Eyes here and Monty Python over there," she thumbed a numbered sample inside the crate by her side. The CSI Tech mumbled, "I really want to know where that arm ended-up."

His appraisal completed he stood, shallow breathed and absently noted: "Behind the bar." The CSI Tech made a questioning sound and outright hissed ' _Ouch_ '. Unfamiliar, as she was, with a forearm embedded elbow-first in the mirror. Right above an ancient, untouched bottle of Whiskey.

The CSI Tech started to speak but Batman had vanished.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering if it's possible for a human to rip body parts off another human. Then...  
> Yes. It is possible.  
> They'd have to have considerable strength and speed behind the move, but yep, the human body is terrifying.   
> So, that's the fun fact for today - see you later !


End file.
